


Initiation Rites

by colorcoded



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Anal Sex, Asphyxiation, Branding, Dubious Consent, Gang Rape, Gangbang, Hazing, M/M, Oral Sex, Paddling, Parent/Child Incest, Vormav is dad of the year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorcoded/pseuds/colorcoded
Summary: The surcoat was newly sewn together and richly dyed in the color Izlude had picked out—a deep forest green. It was unsurprisingly the first thing that caught his eye in the dim torchlight of these underground chambers.It was only when he was grabbed roughly and shoved against the surface of a table that he realized that there were many other things in the room, things that perhaps deserved more of his attention...Izlude becomes a templar, goes through an initiation ritual that involves getting banged by all of his fellow templars, and then experiences a trippy out-of-body moment.
Relationships: Isilud Tengille/the Templarate
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2019





	Initiation Rites

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeathCorporal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathCorporal/gifts).



> I found all the templarate prompts inspiring too, so I also wrote this. I belatedly wanted to add Wiegraf but... I don't have a good handle on him ~~(not like I have a good handle on any of the characters featured in this fic, omg)~~.

Izlude knelt in front of the high confessor and his father, dressed in a plain white shirt and trousers. As he knelt, the high confessor anointed him with holy oils, bestowing upon him the task of being a sword of the Church, rooting out evil in the form of heresy, and doing the Church's will in the world. His father stepped forward next, reading out a prepared statement listing out Izlude's accomplishments and why he had been nominated to become a member of the Templar order. He concluded by saying that it was his honor, as head of the Shrine Knights, to accept Izlude as a member of said order. The rote language and his father's impassive voice were soothing to Izlude, betraying no hint that their filial relationship may have played any role in the decision-making process. Izlude was, after all, keenly aware that he was unusually young to be inducted as a templar—wet behind the ears, as his father had said several weeks ago, when he had detailed how the induction ceremony would go and warned Izlude not to embarrass him.

But the accomplishments his father had listed—his skill with the sword, battles he had fought bravely in, the work he did for the Church—were not unimpressive, and they were his own.

More intonations from the high confessor followed. The candles, incense, and warm air in the cathedral had a lulling effect, inviting Izlude to sleep—a tempting invitation, given the all-night vigil he had held the night before. But no, it was important to remain alert and attentive, and so he resisted the siren call. After the high confessor concluded his speech, Izlude rose, a knight templar of the Glabados Church. With the ceremony over with, friends, family, and the other members of his order gathered around to congratulate him before filing out of the cathedral and getting on with the rest of their day. Before long, all who were left were his father and Rofel Wodring. Both of them indicated he should follow to a place deeper in the cathedral, where the last set of rites were to be performed. These rites were ones that only other Shrine Knights knew about and participated in, passed down in secret through the Templar order. Even his father, vaguely worried as he was that Izlude might embarrass him, had been fairly tight-lipped regarding what they would involve, only saying that they could be long and they required some amount of fortitude, but that he would be fine.

Rofel and his father led Izlude down several flights of stairs and through narrow corridors with stone walls hidden deep within the belly of Mullonde Cathedral.

"Your armor and surcoat are finished," Rofel told him in a friendly voice. "You'll be able to don them for the first time when the rites are finished. You are excited, I take it?"

Izlude did not want to appear over-eager, but he had certainly been anticipating it for several weeks now.

They turned a corner and came to a door on the side of the hall. His father nodded his head toward it, indicating that Izlude should enter. Izlude pushed the heavy oak door open and stepped inside.

The room he entered was dark. In the dimness, he could see the aforementioned golden armor and surcoat of a knight templar hung neatly on a stand in the corner so as to display the uniform in full. The surcoat was newly sewn together and richly dyed in the color Izlude had picked out—a deep forest green. It was unsurprisingly the first thing that caught his eye in the dim torchlight of these underground chambers.

It was only when he was grabbed roughly and shoved against the surface of a table that he realized that there were many other things in the room, things that perhaps deserved more of his attention—this table with heavy leather straps attached to it, for example, or the whips and tongs hung on one wall of the room. The room he was in, Izlude realized belatedly, was one that was used to interrogate heretics. Why had he been brought here? No one could accuse him of being a heretic. Was this some kind of prank?

This was neither an interrogation nor a prank, it turned out, but, according to his father, a ritualized recreation of the sufferings of St. Ajora, following his betrayal by Germonique and leading to his execution, a tradition that went back nearly to the founding of the Church of Glabados and had been carefully preserved by templar leaders. "In order to fight as a member of our holy order," his father intoned, "you must be broken down and remade anew. By participating in a ritual that seeks to recreate St. Ajora's sufferings, we become closer to the divine, often creating an experience of special revelation." His father went on to emphasize the importance that this ritual was always and must always remain secret, as well as to mention that St. Ajora's suffering had been altered to remove anything that might cause permanent damage to limbs, which were obviously core to the livelihood of a Temple Knight.

Izlude wasn't sure whether to feel less or more apprehensive after hearing that detail.

"You have already experienced the first two sufferings," his father said. "You have kept your fast for the full day preceding your initiation and you have kept a vigil from sunset to sunrise. These represent the sufferings that can be brought about by deprivation of food and deprivation of sleep."

At the time he'd done them, they had seemed to be more a type of purification, a way to achieve focus. Suffering had not been on Izlude's mind. Framing it as such gave them a somewhat different meaning, it seemed, somehow darker and less hopeful.

But he did not have much time to contemplate this. After providing this explanation, the hands released Izlude. He glanced around the dark interrogation room, noticing that more templars had filed in, not having left earlier as he thought, but having individually made their way down here at their own pace. The colors of their habits formed a dull rainbow as they stood against the walls of the dark room.

"Strip," his father commanded. "Remove every article of clothing."

Izlude did as he was told, removing his clothing until his skin was bare. Rofel took the discarded clothes and neatly folded them up in a pile under the suit of templar armor. Izlude stood awkwardly, shivering slightly in the cold, hands covering his privates as he waited for what came next.

His father nodded at Kletian Drowa. "Tie him up," he said. Kletian grabbed Izlude's wrists and put them through some leather loops hanging from the ceiling, pulling the straps tight.

"Twelve lashes," his father said.

Kletian complied, taking a whip from the wall, unfurling it, and then swinging the end of the whip hard against Izlude's back. Fighting the temptation to curse, Izlude instead let out a low hiss through clenched teeth. The whipping was finished soon after it started, leaving him with stinging back, skin swollen and warm from the flow of blood to the cuts.

After the lashes had been administered, several templars exited the room and came back a minute later, each holding a bucket full of water. At his father's command, the first stepped forward and upended the bucket over Izlude's head, pouring freezing-cold water over his body. For a moment, the air froze in his lungs and he could not breathe. When finally his lungs worked again, they took in a shuddering gasp of air. The rivulets of cold water trickling down bare skin seemed to steal heat as they passed, leaving Izlude shivering in the cool air.

As he recovered from the shock of the water, the other templars were emptying their buckets into a small trough. When they were done, Izlude felt hands release his wrists from the straps and drag him roughly to the side of the trough. Another grabbed him by the hair and shoved him face-first into the water and held him there until his lungs were nearly bursting. Then he was brought out, and only had time for a shuddering half-breath of air before he was submerged again.

This was repeated several times until finally Izlude found himself on his hands and knees on the cold floor, panting for breath and shivering uncontrollably. He felt light-headed, barely aware of his surroundings, and it took him a few moments to realize there was something next to his face, and it took him a few moments after _that_ to realize it was a cock—bare and erect.

Instinctively, Izlude turned in the direction of his father in hopes of some explanation or clarification.

His father's response was terse and simple: "Suck him."

"But—" Izlude wasn't in the most lucid state of mind, but it seemed to him a marked escalation—something that asked much more of him than he had expected to give.

His father, seeing his hesitation, responded sharply, "Do you truly think that Ajora's Yudoran interrogators would not have stooped to using such methods to break his spirit? Saint Ajora no doubt experienced suffering of this form before he died."

Of course Izlude knew that. It was just he had not expected it would be a requirement for becoming a templar... and he had never done it before.

But his father had mentioned at the start that the focus would be on forms of suffering that would not negatively affect the use of his limbs, and certainly this was a form that did not involve physical injury. No permanent harm would be done and that was something that spoke in favor of this particular form of torture. Slowly, he turned back toward the man, eyes flicking upward to see who it was he was meant to suck. He was a bit relieved to see he did not recognize the face—an older man with hair slicked back behind his ears. He was possibly one of the newer members of the Templar order. He bore a smug sort of smile on his face.

Izlude's eyes flicked back down, to where the man's smoke-grey surcoat had been moved to the side, where the front of his trousers had been undone. He wore no armor under the surcoat, and Izlude noticed that on the inside of his left hip was a small patch of scar tissue, an angry pink in color, in the shape of the icon of Glabados. He did not have much time to look, however, as the man grabbed him by the hair and brought his face flush with the cock.

Izlude did what was expected of him, taking the man's prick in his mouth and doing his best to moisten its length with his lips and tongue. It was not long before he found himself moving back and forth, taking more of the cock into his mouth and then retreating before swallowing more of it again, helped along by the hand that still held tufts of his hair in a vice-like grip. The pace sped up until it reached the point where Izlude could not go any faster. At this point, the man withdrew his member from Izlude's mouth and continued with his hand, pumping it rapidly until his seed flew and spattered itself across Izlude's skin.

"Good," was Vormav's response. He nodded to several other templars, who each grabbed hold of one of Izlude's limbs and lifted him onto a table. Once there, they used the weight of their body to hold him down.

"The symbol?"

"It's ready, ser," came the reply from a templar at the other end of the room.

"Good. Brand him."

The shrine knights at Izlude's side tightened their hold on his limbs as their comrade brought forward a poker and brought its red-hot tip down on his bare skin, just inside his left hip. He let out a cry as the metal singed his skin for a few moments and then was brought away. No doubt it was the icon of Glabados, identical to the one the other man had. The pain unfortunately did not leave with the metal, though, and Izlude's skin was still on fire with pain when he was moved to yet another table.

This one was lower and smaller, more a stand than a table, made of a marble that was cool and soothing against his newly-burned skin. They draped his torso across the surface of the table, flat on his belly, tying his arms down to the left and right. His legs draped down the side of the stand, long enough to reach the floor but too weak to actually support his weight.

"Spread his legs," came his father's voice.

Izlude was utterly unprepared for the impact of a small flat board against his backside, a smack that fell square on both of his buttocks and also managed to hit his testicles as well. It was intentional—each successive strike landed in exactly the same place. It was much more painful than the earlier whipping had been, and by the fifth or sixth hit, tears had formed in Izlude's eyes. He wanted to beg for the paddling to stop, but he was too upset to even speak up; the tears began to fall down his face as the pain and helplessness and self-pity contributed to his misery. His whole body trembled in the cold and in anticipation of the next impact.

Then, finally, it was done. Izlude felt the tension drain out of him. Even when he felt his legs being spread again, and a greased cock forcing itself into his anus, it was almost a relief after the previous torment. Tears still fell from his eyes—once released, they would not stop—but he felt himself surrender control of his body, riding the motion, going along with it, and in so doing, finding a kind of peace in it.

Izlude spent a long time sprawled on that altar, being pounded in the arse by other shrine knights. It seemed like every one of them had to have their turn, which they took in ones or twos—as some chose to use Izlude's mouth at the same time as another took him from behind. Izlude did not know how long it lasted but by the end he was no longer cold and shivering. Rather, his skin was warm and clammy with sweat... and other liquids.

When finally all was done, his arms were released from their bindings and he slumped to his knees on the floor. Arms gently picked him up and turned him around so that he was facing his father.

"The final trial," his father was saying, his hands clasped behind his back. "The hanging."

A thick noose was placed around his neck and then tightened so that it pressed against the sides of Izlude's throat. As the cord tightened, he felt an odd sort of lightheadedness and, at the same time, felt his cock twitch upward.

He was brought back to full alertness by the sound of his father's voice. "How long I have waited for this," his father was saying. It wasn't quite his father's voice—it was layered with something else, another bass voice beneath it, saying the same thing. 

Izlude was floating, he realized. He was looking down at his father bent down next to someone—next to his own body, he realized, naked and slumped on the floor. The purple of his father's surcoat was distinctive and allowed him to be easily picked out, but for some reason he was wearing a heavy lion's head on his shoulders. Izlude blinked, shook his head, and it was gone. Out of the corners of his eyes, though, it seemed that others in the room wore horns.

He could float so Izlude flew up through the underground tunnels that ran through Mullonde Cathedral, coming out into the light-streaked main hall, where scattered people were resting or praying. He continued to rise, up through the vaulted ceilings until he was standing above the city of Mullonde, staring down at all the pitched roofs. He continued to rise, until he could see the edges where Mullonde met the sea, rising further and further until he could see all of Ivalice spread out below him.

Viewing the whole kingdom, Izlude felt he understood something important, about its past and about its future.

The feeling stayed with him when his eyes cracked open and he took in the dark interrogation room he was lying in. It soon faded, however. His father was kneeling next to him, brushing sweaty hair from his forehead.

"It's done," his father was saying. "You did well, Izlude."

Izlude could only nod.

A pair of templars carried him to another room where they washed him with warm water, letting his own blood and sweat, and the seed of other men flow away with the water into a drain. And his own seed, Izlude realized, at seeing the liquid that had spattered on his belly and coated his softening prick. When that had happened, he could not say.

When he was cleaned and dried off and bandaged, Izlude returned limping to the first room, to don his clothes, his armor, and his surcoat. The armor was heavy, especially for one so weakened and sore, but he only needed to wear it long enough to exit the cathedral and return home, where he could freely rest.

* * *

The next day, Izlude entered his father's study, questioning his father why he had not told him all that the initiation rites involved.

His father's response was clipped. "You always wanted to be a templar. Would you have gone through with it if you knew all that it required?"

There was no good answer. To say that it would have deterred him would be to justify his father's decision to not disclose; to say that it would not would undermine the painfulness of his experience, given that he would have chosen willingly to go through with it anyway. Izlude tried a third tack: "I would, but it would have been good to have some kind of warning, some better preparation."

"You received the exact amount of preparation any initiate receives," his father said brusquely. Then, softening, added, "And you bore the experience as well as any templar."

Izlude hesitated but after some thought accepted this answer. After all, what more could he want than to receive the same treatment as any other member of his order, and to perform as well as one, too?

It was not long before his sister noticed his injuries. First she wondered why he was not wearing his armor, and then, seeing him wince after sitting in a chair too quickly, she peered down the back of his shirt and saw his bandages.

"Izlude! Where did you get these injuries?"

The irony was that the wounds on his back were the least painful ones he had. "Initiation rites," he said. "If you don't already know, I... don't think I can tell you. They're meant to be secret." Meliadoul had become a shrine maiden half a year earlier; Izlude couldn't recall her acting odd afterward.

"Are you all right? Perhaps I should talk to Father about how severe some of these rituals get."

Izlude almost laughed, knowing as Meliadoul did not that their father had overseen the entire rite. "I'll be all right. I'm already healing. And..." Well, he did not know how to say it without sounding daft, but he seemed to have had some sort of religious experience, as his father had promised. "And it was a positive experience overall," he said.

Meliadoul accepted his answer, but she was not satisfied until she had retrieved a potion from her room and pressed it into his hands.


End file.
